UPDATE 6-Canada thwarts 'al Qaeda-supported' passenger train plot

* Two men charged with plot to derail passenger train

* Plot "al Qaeda-supported," not related to Boston bombings

* U.S. police say pair targeted Canada-U.S. train

By Euan Rocha

TORONTO, April 22 Canadian police said on Monday
they had arrested and charged two men with plotting to derail a
Toronto-area passenger train in an operation they say was backed
by al Qaeda elements in Iran.

"Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in
innocent people being killed or seriously injured," Royal
Canadian Mounted Police official James Malizia told reporters in
Toronto.

The RCMP said it had arrested Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of
Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto in connection with the
plot, which authorities said was not linked to the Boston
Marathon bombings, which killed three and injured more than 200
people last week.

Neither is a Canadian citizen, but the police did not reveal
their nationalities.

A spokeswoman for the Institut National de la Recherche
Scientifique near Montreal confirmed that Esseghaier was a
doctoral student at the research institute and that he had been
arrested.

Julie Martineau, the school's director of communications,
said Esseghaier arrived at the school in 2010 and was about
midway through his degree.

"He is doing a PhD in the field of energy and materials
sciences," she told Reuters.

A bail hearing for the two will take place in Toronto on
Tuesday morning.

Malizia said there was no indication that the planned
attacks, which police described as the first known al Qaeda-
backed plot on Canadian soil, were state-sponsored.

U.S. officials said the attack would have targeted a rail
line between New York and Toronto, a route that travels along
the Hudson Valley into New York wine country and enters Canada
near Niagara Falls.

Canadian police said only that the plot involved a VIA
train route in the Toronto area.

VIA is Canada's equivalent of Amtrak and operates passenger
rail services on track owned primarily by Canadian National
Railway Co.

JOINT OPERATIONS

Malizia said that the RCMP believed the two had the capacity
and intent to carry out the attack, but there was no imminent
threat to the public, passengers, or infrastructure.

The arrests come as Bostonians are still recovering from
last Monday's bombings, and is one of a
handful of terrorism-related investigations involving Canadians
or Canadian residents.

Police said earlier this year that Canadians took part in an
attack by militants on a gas plant in Algeria in January, while
Canadian and Somalia authorities are investigating whether a
former University of Toronto student participated in a bomb
attack on Mogadishu last week.

And in 2006, police arrested and charged nearly 20
Toronto-area men accused of planning to plant bombs at various
Canadian targets. Eleven were eventually convicted.

RCMP Superintendent Doug Best said a tip from the Canadian
Muslim community had helped the investigation. The timing of the
arrests was due to "logistics."

"Today's arrests demonstrate that terrorism continues to be
a real threat to Canada," Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told
reporters in Ottawa.

"Canada will not tolerate terrorist activity and we will not
be used as a safe haven for terrorists or those who support
terrorist activities."

AL QAEDA IN IRAN

The Canadian authorities linked the two to al Qaeda factions
in Iran, to the surprise of some security experts.

"The individuals were receiving support from al Qaeda
elements located in Iran," Malizia said.

Iran did host some senior al Qaeda figures under a form of
house arrest in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks,
but there has been little to no evidence to date of joint
attempts to execute violence against the West.

However, a U.S. government source said Iran is home to a
little-known network of alleged al Qaeda fixers and
"facilitators" based in the Iranian city of Zahedan, very close
to Iran's borders with both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The source said the operatives serve as go-betweens, travel
agents and financial intermediaries for al Qaeda operatives and
cells operating in Pakistan and moving through the area.

They do not operate under the protection of the Iranian
government, which has a generally hostile attitude towards Sunni
al Qaeda militants, and which periodically launches crackdowns
on the al Qaeda elements, though at other times appears to turn
a blind eye to them.

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